Of Red and White: Reprise
by the dark icon writers
Summary: Being in every man's fantasy, Keitaro Urashima wants to do nothing more than find what makes him, him. Leaving for the United States with Seta, we watch as he finds adventure, his ninche', and two women who would do anything for him. Paused!


_Back when it happened I couldn't have been more depressed, but thanks to that single simple event I'm probably the happiest man in the world. I'm so happy that I could almost thank her for doing it! Okay, maybe that was a little bit mean we're friends now but still; I do have a bit of spite left within me from that. _

_I went from being a dead last loser at everything that I did to what I am now. I'm tempted to go kiss the creator of the Tokyo-U exams for making me fail those three times so that I was able to get into situation. In fact I may just go do that… well maybe not the creator but the current president of the University at least; after all… my boss is pretty cute._

_But even though I went through a lot, these have probably been the best years of my life. _

_And it's all thanks to my clumsiness and the now unforgettable beauty of red and white._

--Keitaro Urashima--

Of Red and White: Reprise  
By: Dimitri Plabato of the Dark Icon United Front

Disclaimer: Disclaimed.

/ - Writing  
_Thoughts_

: Emotions:

**1. **Tangles

Hinata Sou was known for many things, so many in fact that it made the Hinata District a very attractive tourist spot. People from all over the world would come to visit the small town area to hear more about the all girls dorm with the male manager and all of their wacky adventures and such. Sometimes people would call it the next Nerima, the place where weird and random things happened so often that no one was really bothered by it anymore.

That's why no one was surprised when a figure flew over head with a scream coming from the inn sounding oddly like "Hentai!"

Said figure soared through the sky like normal, as he descended towards the middle of the city he jumped so that he would have a bit of balance when he finally fell to the ground.

He dusted himself off and scratched the back of his head "Man… we really need to start up an Airport… Hinata-Sou airlines! Everywhere to Outer Earth Orbit in 20 minutes flat! She hits like a mad woman!" Keitaro said to himself as he looked around to see exactly where he was.

Now he wasn't one who bitched about his situations normally but this was just some plain annoying crap! She had booted him halfway from the dorm and now he would have to walk his way back or pay a taxi.

"Did she have to hit that far? I said I was sorry! It's not like I meant to walk into the springs, crap! Get a life or something."

No, Keitaro Urashima was not impressed with one Naru Narusegawa anymore. He had tried everything in the world he could think of to get her to feel the same way about him that he did about her yet it seemed that she would eternally be the way she was.

He took a look up to the sky and mentally counted the time, it seemed as if was around noon or something close to it. Shrugging he walked down the street, if you're hit across town you might as well hang out for a while right?

He walked into the bookstore and coffee shop with a grin on his face. He always felt better when he entered this shop for some reason he couldn't fathom. Surrounded by books, good atmosphere and people did that he supposed.

"Hey Keitaro man! It's been a while since you've been by here, how's it going?" said the owner of the place, one Eric Davis. He had meet Keitaro his first day opening when the young man had literally flown got punched into the shop. Even though he had told him he didn't have to Keitaro had helped him fix up the shop and got it ready for business.

He made his way towards the 'bar' area and took a seat next to a beautiful woman who sipped on her green tea without saying anything. He smiled at David as he shook his hand. "Not much, you know the normal and everything like that."

David smirked as he looked at his friend and then his voice got low, "So… you and that Naru girl gotten anywhere yet?" he knew how the man felt about the girl… in fact he had met her one time when she and he were on a 'study date' or something like that. He wasn't too impressed but hey, maybe Keitaro saw something in her that he just couldn't find.

Keitaro folded his hands and lay his head down on them "Heh, no you'd notice if I had."

Truly curious David had to ask "How?"

Keitaro smirked, a look which would seem weird on his face to those whom lived with him and had known him for years yet one that seemed to belong to those whom he let everything out on. "You checked outside lately? If me and her had gotten together you'd see pigs flying, Godzilla deciding not to attack Japan for once, and hell would have frozen over so much that it'd be called Antarctica."

Anyone who heard the joke had no choice but to laugh, he sounded so serious about it that it made it even funnier than he had meant it too.

"I still don't see what in the world you see in her you know." David said as he plopped a cup of coffee in front of Keitaro.

He took it gladly and sipped it slowly savoring the flavor "I was thinking about that earlier… I don't know what I see in her either." He took another sip of the coffee and looked up at David with a lopsided grin "You know… I'd almost be tempted to go gay if you told me the recipe to this coffee." He said after a moment. David laughed "I know! That's the reason I'm not giving it to you!"

He smiled. These were moments that he lived for. The chance to spend time with people he could honestly call friends without having to worry about being hit by random punches, sword slashes, or kicks and such. He loved the girls, really he did. But sometimes they'd really rake his last nerve.

He could deal with all of them with the exception of Naru and Motoko, no one else truly tried to hurt him except those two. He had admitted his love for her and yet she continued to act like the fool that she was. She had told him "Maybe" he truly cut off his chances when she had said that.

There are only 'yes' and 'no' in the game of love, there are no such things as 'Maybe'. Some part of him the logical part had given up on the teenager when she had said that. It was complicated he supposed but that was his life, no matter how much he didn't want it.

His life was curved in a wave of promises and failures, so many that it was tangled in a web. There were so many people whom his life was affected by and how many it affected.

Shinobu… the girl had a crush on him; similar to Hinata and that Naruto guy in that anime that he used to watch before they went into filler season. She liked him because of his 'never give up' attitude and the way that he inspired confidence in her. However, no matter how much she 'loved' him it'd never work out. The way he figured it was that she was too young for him anyways.

Su and Sarah; he put these two in the same categories like normal. Both of them viewed him as an older brother of sorts and even if they did see him romantically, they fell under the same case as Shinobu.

He did a mental grin as he thought about the next girl on his list "Kitsune – the Fox." Now no matter how much he wanted to not admit it, they'd be one interesting couple. She was a fun person to hang around, and she didn't have a hesitation at telling you what she thought about you. In fact she was his closest friend, the one he could go to without having to worry about her judgment and vise versa. They couldn't get together even though it'd be interesting...besides; she seemed to have a crush on Hitani.

Mitsumi, now there was a hard one. The beautiful islander truly loved him from the bottom of her heart, so much that she was willing to give him up. No matter how much he thought about her though; he just couldn't find himself loving her that way. She was like that cousin on the side of the family that you rarely see but when you're together you can have a blast.

Motoko was an interesting one. If he had been asked last year he would have never even thought about her, he would have skipped over her like normal but this time was different. She was acting differently, not drastically enough for her to come out of nowhere and say "Men Rule!" or something like that but she was changing bit by bit. She had her own elegant beauty and would continue to grow into a fine woman.

His face turned sour as he thought about the last girl in his life. If you had asked him weeks earlier he would have told you that Naru was a gift from the heavens descended upon him like Chuck Norris's foot upon the face spine, and back of an enemy. But now the girl was nothing more than that a 'girl'. She refused to grow up, she continued to hit him for accidents, she refused to grow up and that would forever make her lose.

"Huh?" he said being snapped out of his thoughts by David whom was watching him with a raised eyebrow "You okay man, you looked like someone had just stolen the lottery from you." Keitaro took another sip of his coffee before sliding it down on the table "Yea, I'm good. Just doing a little bit of thinking."

"Well you know if anything comes up you can always talk to me." He gave the man a genuine smile "Thanks man I'll remember that."

--

As David walked off to tend to other customers Keitaro was snapped out of his thoughts once again by the woman besides him whom he had totally forgotten about. The older women About 2 years put down her cup of tea and said "It sounds like you lead an interesting life."

He smiled at the beautiful woman without a bit of shyness, after all; living with 6 females at one time sort of made you immune to things like that. "I suppose you could say something like that even though I wish that it would calm down."

The woman besides him let out a sound so wonderful that it almost made him want to die right then and there; it took a bit for him to realize that it was a laugh.

She held out her hand and said "Tsuruko." Her name by obvious standards.

He took her hand and kissed the back of it "Well thank you for accepting my company my beautiful maiden."

Tsuruko giggled softly as she looked at the younger man in front of her.

The two of them talked for hours, going on about there lives, dreams, ambitions, hobbies; everything that they could think of. But soon, it was getting late and they would have to go their separate ways soon.

"So what do you plan on doing next week?" he asked her as they sat across from each other at the beach which they had made themselves to during the day she sipped the daiquiri that she had ordered and looked out to the sea.

"This is my last day in Japan." She told him after a moment. He didn't say anything, instead he let her finish expressing her thoughts and feelings "My husband died two years ago and I've been slacking off on my work. I'll be headed to America where my dojo's second branch lays out at. Ten to one, I'll be leaving my younger sister with the dojo here."

They sat in silence as the wind blew across the salted water. Neither of them needed to say anything for that moment.

"How about your self Keitaro-kun, what do you plan on doing after today? You know the Tokyo-U exams don't happen for another year. Are you going to take them?"

"In reality it depends on events I suppose. I have a business venture from a friend I'm thinking about checking out but as I said, that depends on how things are later on. I have two more weeks to decide. As for Tokyo-U; I'm not sure."

Their time elapsed into silence once again.

He couldn't help it!

No matter how much he willed it he just couldn't get that infernal grin to get away from his face! It was like it was stuck on his face with super crazy glue. In fact he was beginning to scare some of the people around as he walked towards Hinata-Sou.

He had just come back from taking Tsuruko to her home, it was cozy and nice. Just like her. She had invited him in for some hot coffee but he refused, saying that he should get home before the girls started looking for him. She looked crestfallen but picked it back up when he said that he'd take her up on her offer the next time she was in town if things hadn't changed.

His grin started to fall though as thoughts ran through his head at a mile a minute 'But… I'll probably never see her again.' As he walked up the stairs to the place he called home.

He forgot… that in a life full of tangles, you always take the same corners more than once.

"See look at him, he's probably thinking about the slut he was with right now!"

Now _THAT _made Keitaro snap back to attention. Since he had walked in Around 9 that night Naru had continuously been yelling about him asking where he was and such. Now she was on a rant about him collaborating with some young woman who had promised to take him to heights that he had never been before.

Poor Shinobu had fainted with a nose bleed.

"—Out." He had dozed out again but something about that made him want to pay attention to the ranting female of his former dreams.

He felt a pang in his heart but he couldn't place when he heard the women around him gasp. The playful giddiness was gone now, replaced by a serious Keitaro.

"He's been perverted since he became manager always peeking on us and such, I want him out!" she screamed.

Silence over took Hinata-Sou for the first time in years.  
For the first time people whom were outside and use to the normal runnings of the place stopped what they were doing as the cold flew through them. No one had ever heard it be completely silent, there was always the sound of laughter, yelling, grunts or something… but now there was nothing.

Keitaro Urashima sat in the middle of this silence, catalysis to the situation that was overtaking Hinata-Sou at this moment. He closed his eyes as everyone began yelling their disapproval at the harness of Naru's law.

"Let's say I'm gone for a year or two… will that be enough for you?" he said silently

"I want you gone forever!" she yelled in response

"I'm manager and owner of this dorm if you forgot; I'm _not _leaving forever." He said with more of a backbone than he had ever shown before. This was a situation that he never wanted to get into again, never.

"That's fine enough." She said, anger CLEARLY fogging her judgment.

He smiled it seemed as if he was doing that normally now as he stood up from the sofa where he had made himself comfortable at during this 'talk' and walked over to the phone. He pulled out a piece of paper from his wallet and dialed the number on it.

No one said a word; even Naru it seemed had just realized what she had just done. It seemed as if the person on the other line had picked up for he started to talk.

'_Hello_?'

'_Yo Seta, it's me_.'

'_Hey part timer! What's up_?'

'_Not much. Is that offer still open_?'

'_Yes, we leave uhh…' he paused to find some papers_ '_Thursday actually._'

'_Well I'd like to join you if possible_.'

'_You would? That's GREAT! I'll see you at the airport then okay_?'

'_Alright, thanks again._'

He hung up the phone with a huge smile on his face. He looked like he had just won the lottery.

"Keitaro…" Haruka was the first to ask the question that they all wanted to know. Eternally present cigarette playing on her lips as she looked her nephew up and down. "What was that all about?"

She blinked when she realized that her cigarette was now gone and in the trash. Snatched out of her mouth by the one and only Keitaro.

"Seta offered me a job about a month ago. It required me going to the states for about a year or two. I turned him down at first but as you can see I just accepted it. I'll probably be gone for about a year and a half so that should be enough time for you to…" he tilted his head towards Naru "get over my perverseness I suppose."

"Well now that that's taken care of and you girls won't have to deal with me for a while after tomorrow… what do you say we sit down and eat dinner?" he literally hopped into the dining room leaving a room full of girls staring in shock.

"What the hell did you just do!"

"Nooooooooooo! Keitaro-sempai is leaving for a year!"

"Do you think he'll bring me presents?"

In a life of tangles, you will always change those of the people around you. Keitaro Urashima is starting to untangle his life… but what other tangles will this bring about for him?

-End Chapter One

A/N:

Hey Love Hina community, look who's back in the game? That's right! Khan!... Nah, it's just me. Whew, that took a while to get out but it finally did and I can say I like it. To those whom read the original you can REALLY see the differences. The second chapter should be out by sometime next week if I have time; you know college and all that but it'll be coming MUCH faster than the original.

Thanks for reading! And see you next chapter!

--The Dark Icon United Front--  
Do you think you've got what it takes to join the Dark Icon United Front? A group of steadily growing writers aiming for the top. Visit the links in our profile for more information.


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